Return To The Cargo Bay

Posted on Mon May 25, 2020 @ 11:39am by The StoryTeller & Lieutenant Zekori Dosan & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes & Ensign Athyle sh'Paveress

Mission: The Nanjing
Location: Cargo Bay
Timeline: MD 2 || 0800 hours

Until yesterday, patience had been one of Tom's strong points. Six hours ago, he'd been planning, formulating, strategizing on the best manner by which to undertake the massive task of converting the Triumphant solely to the Nanjing's cause. All direct methods were met with failure, with the best scenario giving them only a few hours to survive.

The Borg had mucked everything up, appearing in the Badlands while they had been content to consume an abandoned and aging Cardassian freighter. The Nanjing weren't a target for assimilation, they were considered to be too close to the Borg in design, too rogue for assimilation, and declared too dangerous to exist. The Nanjing had to scatter to overtake the Borg and save their lives, but the price was too high. Even now while Nanjing crawled the Borg cube, slowly dismantling it and repurposing its materials, they were scattered.

His Nanjing brethren would not be able to reassemble the Borg cube, much less create propulsion systems, and overtake the Triumphant in any amount of acceptable time. Nor would they be looking for communication means from other Nanjing to alert them to the Triumphant. No, it would take significant modifications to Triumphant. To do that, he would need help.

Tom knew of the perfect individuals for the task. Ensign sh'Paveress would do anything to help him, and he would prey on the fresh and eager Bajoran Lieutenant who was her supervisor. In the middle of the night, he sent both individuals a message, instructing them to meet him in the cargo bay under the guise of collecting more samples from the Borg debris which still sat there. Tom would indeed collect more samples, raw materials for the conversion front, but he would utilize Autumn's drones to do so.

His Nanjing-enhanced mind took seconds to create an appropriate algorithm, but it took Triumphant more than an hour to implement, slowly locking down a certain Jefferies Tube pathway to allow for the nearly undetectable transfer of materials throughout the ship. Once the cargo bay had been secured, and the two new subjects undergoing conversion, Tom would join Maddy in her quest to infiltrate Intel. For now, the Cargo Bay awaited.

Lieutenant Zekori Dosan stepped off the Turbolift carrying a toolkit in hand. The Bajoran Chief Operations Officer was happy to receive a message from Master Chief Petty Officer Barnes to assist him in collecting samples through the Borg technology they recovered. He approached the door to the Cargo Bay. The door swooshed open, he stepped inside.

"Master Chief?" Zekori called out.

Tom, looking as normal as ever, still with the medical device on his neck that had been placed there by the ship's doctor, stepped out from behind the Borg debris with a tricorder and laser torch in hand. "Ah, Lieutenant," he said with a smile. "Thank you for joining me this morning. Ever seen the Borg up close and personal?"

"From at least two metres apart hopefully," Zekori quipped.

The Master Chief chuckled. "Thankfully, the debris are inert. It's the drones you have to worry about, the pale, emotionless faces and the eerie laser eyes. Not like you and I, who are flesh and blood, and full of life." Waving his tools, Tom added, "And there aren't any drones around to stop us from taking this stuff apart for study. Commander Arrda and I got a few samples yesterday, but I need to grab a few more for detailed analysis. Mind giving me a hand?"

"Of course, Chief. That's why I'm here, interdepartmental cooperation. Where do you want to get started?" Zekori asked.

"Over here," Tom said, gesturing to the other side of the debris. "There are a couple of areas rich in an unknown mineral I'd like to take a closer look at."

At that moment, the doors to the cargo bay opened and Ensign sh'Paveress, still missing an antenna, entered the room with the aid of a cane. The antenna had been lost the day prior, and rather than take a leave of absence until enough of it had reformed, she enlisted the aid of a cane to restore her equilibrium for now.

'Excellent!" Tom said with a smile. He waved sh'Paveress over to join them. I could use your hand with a tricorder back here, Ensign."

"Of course," the Bajoran Operations Chief settled his toolkit nearby and pulled his tricorder from his belt and began to scan the debris. He triangulated the unknown minerals. He kneeled down and placed the tricorder nearby and picked up a cutting tool so he could take a sample. He grabbed the tricorder and crawled forward a bit and began to cut.

"Ensign," Tom said, waving the Andorian shen over. "Give the Lieutenant an assist."

She nodded and knelt down beside the Bajoran, positioning her arms and hands to catch whatever he was cutting out.

Tom stood behind both of them and waited to make sure that they were focused on their work. He had only done this once before, but it was during a assimilation-fueled stupor of which he had few memories of. Tom looked down at his fingertips where the tubule openings remained sealed. His eyes turned upward as he switched his vision to infrared, causing his eyes to glow.

He wouldn't wait any more. Tom leaned over and quickly positioned his hands beside each of their necks, about six inches away. The tubules sprang forth from his hands, attached themselves to Zekori's and Athyle's necks, and began to inject the first wave of the Nanjing converters.

Zekori wasn't certain what was happening as the tubes inserted itself into his neck and nanites begun to storm his body. His hand clenched for the tubes behind his head but felt his body betraying him, "Why?"

“This is the future,” Tom simply replied, keeping his plans and the injections in place. He had stored up enough nanites to convert both of the Operations officers, though he would have to restock before joining Maddy for intel. “The next step in our evolution.”

Zekori didn't respond to the Master Chief verbally as he crashed down onto the floor from being prone.

Tom let go a moment later, leaving the prone Zekori and Athyle to begin their conversion in peace. Since the cargo bay's sensors were now being fed false information thanks to an artificially generated feed, Tom was now free to move about as he needed.

He didn't have to call out to the drones that were hiding in the nearby tubes. Tom simply willed it and they emerged. Two of them collected Zekori's and Athyle's bodies and disappeared back into the tubes. Three others began to cut into the Borg debris in order to cut away fragments to use for raw materials.

Tom had one thing left to do. He exited the cargo bay, then turned around and restored the lockdown. Only senior officers would be able to enter now, and then fortified it with a fractal encryption code. No one would be able to enter now, and hopefully, no one would try.